crazy swedish helicopter pilots

[HiLo]

what the helis going on here?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vrcv_AxuV70

[PokerSwede]

Yeah I remember that.. Pretty tragic story really.

A man was getting 100 years old and had never been flying his whole life so his family arranged for him to get to fly in this helicopter as a birthday present.
Something was apparently wrong with the helicopter (don't remember what was wrong but wasn't bad driving at least :P) and sadly the old man died Guess he wasn't meant to fly...

[euphoricism]

Disagree. Thats bad flying, not a machine malfunction. To me if PokerSwedes story is correct, it looks like the pilot gave the man control of the aircraft in an area which was simply too small for an inexperienced person to attempt to control the helicopter.

Helos are not planes. Theyre incredibly unstable. The best analogy is trying to balance yourself on top of a beachball.

I'm considering rotorcraft flight school, just hella expensive.

[lolzzz_321]

[Taxi]

Thats mad.

Who ever was flying it appeared to be in control (as in, they were flying it but didnt kno how to fly it - the helicopter wasn't going outa control on its own) but clearly didn't know shit about flying next to trees / lamp posts etc.

If the helicopter was broke surely they can just cut the power and dump it on the street.

[PokerSwede]

Disagree. Thats bad flying, not a machine malfunction. To me if PokerSwedes story is correct, it looks like the pilot gave the man control of the aircraft in an area which was simply too small for an inexperienced person to attempt to control the helicopter.

Helos are not planes. Theyre incredibly unstable. The best analogy is trying to balance yourself on top of a beachball.

I'm considering rotorcraft flight school, just hella expensive.

Oh seems like I explained it very very bad.
The old man had never been flying, ie. sitting in a plane/helicopter so they thought he should experience that. He himself didn't fly the helicopter - a pilot did, and something (which they didn't notice) was wrong - which I don't remember exactly what it was.
He was just there as a passenger along with his 3 or so children and his grandchildren.
The rest of them survived the "crash" but since he was quite old it was a little too much.

EDIT - Searched for some old articles in swedish newspapers regarding this event and apparently it was some kind of "black market" - tours by helicopter. The company had 2 crashes in less than 3 weeks and their helicopters were in very bad shape so the crash wasn't THAT surprising, it was also mentioned that he didn't have permission either.
As you say Euph, might as well have been some bad flying in there as well , wouldn't surprise me

[euphoricism]

Havent read the articles, but helicopters have two sets of controls in front. I can almost gaurentee you that the old guy had his hands on those controls.

Theres no pilot in the world with 1,000+ hours takes a helo off like that. Nor would any pilot with 1,000+ hours continue to fly if something felt wrong. Just dumping the collective would have gotten them back on the ground safely.

I can almost guarantee that the pilot allowed the old man to fly, the old man lost control, and the pilot couldnt regain it. He dumped collective to try and put it down, but it rolled.

Remember, basically every single helicopter pilot who isnt currently an instructor was an instructor at one point. Thats how they build hours up, and once they hit the magic 1,000 hour point they can go fly for a company.

[boost]

euph, shut up.

srsly, the first sentence of your post is making me angry.

what the fuck do you know about anything?

youre basing all these assumptions off of misreading the OP.

[euphoricism]

I know quite a bit about helos. Test me, be my guest. I would wager I'm the only one on FTR who has flown one and is looking at doing it as a career.

And I didnt misread the OP, the OP is pretty clear.

The old man had never been flying, ie. sitting in a plane/helicopter so they thought he should experience that. He himself didn't fly the helicopter - a pilot did

Disagree.

So srsly what the fuck do you know about anything?

[boost]

I know that Im just pmsing because my internet has been off for 5 days and thats about it...

anyways Id like to talk about the dynamics of flying sometime. I bought a rc helo and I can do ok skidding around on the ground and short thought out hops, but flying her isnt quite natural yet. A big part of it though is really due to losing my bearings since there are so many axis and they all flip except one depending on the orientation of the helo in relation to you.

[euphoricism]

I dont know much about RCs. I imagine that its pretty fucking hard to control a three axis control with just two thumbs.

A helicopter has rudders you use your feet, a collective lever that goes up and down to control altitude in your left hand, and cyclic that controls pitch and roll and your right hand.

And everytime you change one, you ahve to change the other two. Say you increase your pitch by pulling back on the cyclic. This lowers your speed, and raises your altitude. Lowering yoru speed increases torque which needs more pedal, and if you want to hold altitude you gotta change the collective.

Fucking hard with two hands + feet, two thumbs I dont know. Theres probably a webpage with practice tips.

Also, fuck you <3

[boost]

hah, yah Ive read up a bit, but still its not easy. I undertstand all the forces you are talking about and how you have to counter them but they dont seem to be very exagerated with the RC except when near the ground, but Ill have to put in more hours to really be sure on that.

the fucked up thing with rc's is that a mild gust can ruin your day.

[HiLo]

Fucking hard with two hands + feet, two thumbs I dont know. Theres probably a webpage with practice tips.

nice to see u and boost have kissed and made up but seriously...